


Even Monsters Are Afraid

by relanah_qahs



Series: Whumptober 2020 Turks Edition [7]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Blood, Body Horror, Chaos Transformation, Gen, Hearing Voices, Isolation, Magical Possession, Medical Torture, No. 15 - Freeform, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Panic, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Phobias, Stream of Consciousness, Suicide Attempt, Turk Vincent Valentine, Whumptober 2020, amputations, character backstory, no. 18, no. 31, science gone wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relanah_qahs/pseuds/relanah_qahs
Summary: Vincent Valentine thought he had traded his human soul to the murderous mercenary organization known as the Turks. But after being physically transformed into a monstrous abomination, will there be anyone to save him?Whumptober 2020. Prompts no.18 "Panic At the Disco", no. 31 "Today's Special: Torture", no. 15 "Into the Unknown", and no. 8 "Where Did Everybody Go?"
Relationships: Chaos & Vincent Valentine, Grimoire Valentine & Vincent Valentine, Lucrecia Crescent/Vincent Valentine
Series: Whumptober 2020 Turks Edition [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1912327
Kudos: 21
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	1. Panic

εγλ 1974 May 18. 22:14. Junon. 

_Why did it have to be a morgue?_ Vincent shivered as he took in his surroundings; the revolting smell of decay mixed with embalming fluid and the frigid air made his skin crawl. He had to focus, this was an easy, yet still important assignment. Just find the target’s autopsy report, replace it with the forged copy, and get the hell out of here. This should have been an easy mission for a member of the Turks, so why couldn’t he just get it over with? 

Vincent had always been sensitive to the energy of death, the invisible force of the lifestream that surrounded decomposing corpses, giving him extreme anxiety and terror. It made his job a lot harder; being a part of the professional mercenary organization meant sometimes needing to assassinate a target. It was always excruciating to carry out those sentences, the overwhelming feel of the lifestream’s pull on the dead in sick harmony with the guilt of ending a life--as if he needed to be punished further. 

Perhaps it had stemmed from an incident in his childhood. His father was an archeologist, and the Valentine family lived in a small flat above the laboratory which often held artifacts or exhumed skeletons of ancient humans. One evening, when he was about five or six years old, his mother sent him to the library to remind his father to finish his work and eat dinner with them. So he playfully skipped downstairs, proud that he could go all by himself this time. The door was unlocked so he let himself into the dark room in which his father was nowhere to be seen. On the examining table in the center of the room were a dozen or so human skulls of some ancient civilization. Vincent called out for his father, his voice shook with fright. The closer he stepped toward them, the more intense was the sensation of death’s energy piercing through his soul. 

There came a point where it felt like something was squeezing his chest, knocking out the air in his lungs and making his heart feel like it was about to be crushed. He was cold, his hands shook, and he started screaming and didn’t stop. Vincent didn’t remember what happened after that, his father told him years later. Grimoire had been with his colleagues in his office when he heard the young boy’s screams of terror. He rushed to him, fell to his knees as he tried to get his attention but to no avail. His mother heard it from upstairs and ran as fast as she could to save him. The young Vincent kept screaming and screaming despite his parents’ desperate attempts to calm him down. 

His mother yelled at his father demanding to know what happened to which he vehemently insisted he didn’t know. Grimoire carried him upstairs to their room where his mother held him tightly as he continued to shriek in terror. One of the other researchers from the lab phoned a doctor who came to their home and sedated the boy after he had been screaming incessantly for over an hour. The doctor examined him once he fell asleep, but couldn’t find any evidence of physical injury. When Grimoire recounted this to Vincent years later, he said that somehow that was more terrifying to him. At least an injury was an explanation, but his distraught parents were denied one of any kind. 

After that, his mother stayed by him nearly every waking moment, never allowing her eyes off him for even a minute. His father refrained from his work for a few days to care for them. Vincent never spoke those days. She cried every night after the boy had fallen asleep, confiding in her husband that she worried their son would never speak again and never understand why this had happened. Grimoire assured her that even if Vincent did lose his ability to speak, they would adjust to it and love him all the same. It was weeks later when the boy could say anything. It was the middle of the night, after his mother had fallen asleep but his father remained studying at his desk. Vincent quietly slipped out of the bed, careful not to wake his mother next to him and went to his father.

“ _Dad,_ ” he said in almost a whisper. Grimoire was startled but his expression quickly became one of joy when he realized the voice he heard was his son’s. 

“ _Vincent, it’s nice to hear you again._ ” 

“ _Dad, I wanna be a monster._ ” 

This sudden confession perplexed his father, and Vincent was never really sure why he said such a thing whenever he recollected this conversation. Grimoire hid his worry and confusion of why this would be the first thing the boy would say. “ _Oh? What kind of monster do you want to be?_ ” he said as he lifted the child onto his lap

“ _A big scary one. With fur and horns. Big teeth and claws, and maybe a tail too.”_

“ _And why do you want to be such a scary monster?”_

_“Because monsters don’t have to be afraid of anything if everything else is afraid of them.”_

_“Well, I’m sorry to tell you that even monsters are afraid sometimes. They have to fear bigger monsters and humans with guns. All creatures on this planet feel fear, and that’s not a bad thing, Vincent. Fear is our mind’s way of keeping us safe, so we know to stay away from danger.”_

“ _If I’m not afraid, I’ll end up like the skeletons in your lab_.”

Grimoire was completely taken aback. He paused, carefully considering his words. _“Did seeing those skeletons make you feel afraid?”_ Vincent nodded _. “So that’s what happened. I’m so sorry you had to see that and that it scared you so much. But you’re alright now because I am here, and I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Mom is here too. We are always here for you, Vincent. Always._

That was a lie. Anger always consumed him when Vincent replayed that conversation from his memory. His parents couldn’t protect him; his mother had been dead for over a decade and he was estranged from his father who had chosen his research over helping his son. 

His only family now were the Turks--the mercenaries who had taken him in and made him a professional criminal. They took him in as a lonely and frightened teenager and trained him to kill and torture without any hint of emotion. They convinced him to trade his soul in exchange for praise and a place to stay--a twisted, psychotic chosen family. Maybe he didn’t need fur and claws after all. He was a monster in human skin.

But the horror of death’s presence never eased its assault on Vincent’s soul. No matter how many corpses he found himself around, he could never ignore the energy of death--a twisted gift from the lifestream. He couldn’t ignore it, but he could force himself to push through it. 

Now his hands were shaking. He fought through the panic in his chest as he read and re-read the charts on the doors of the morgue. The pain intensified with each second spent in this place, spreading from his heart and traveling up his spine to his head--throbbing in his temple. Taking a breath was a fight in itself. Finally, he found the poor sap’s autopsy report. His fingers fumbled as he took the paper and replaced it with the forged copy. But it was finished. Time to get the hell out of here.

Vincent hurried out of the room, but taking caution to stay quiet in case some hospital employee was nearby. Fortunately this ward was empty after hours, and his partner Veld was manipulating the security footage now. Every step away from the horrid place, a breath of air refreshed him. The pain in his chest and head faded replacing it with an acute sense of light-headedness. 

Vincent wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. 


	2. Today’s Special: Torture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains graphic depictions of medical torture. Reader discretion advised.

_Is this it?_ Those were the words running through Vincent’s mind as he felt his consciousness fading. Perhaps it was from the shock of being shot suddenly, or maybe the adrenaline rush from rage, but he didn’t register any pain as he struggled to take his final breaths. 

What did he last remember? He was in Nibelheim Manor, in the basement (well, dungeon would be a more apt description). He had confronted Hojo, his heart burning with a violent anger. The rage had consumed him so much he didn’t even sense the dark pull of lifestream on the hundreds of skeletons buried throughout the basement. Lucrecia begged him not to hurt the sick bastard so Vincent left his gun upstairs. Of course, Hojo did not extend the same courtesy; Vincent didn’t realize it wasn’t a fair fight until he was writhing on the ground choking on his own blood filling his lungs. _Is this it?_ He thought, as the sounds of Hojo’s maniacal laughter faded and everything went dark. 

But it wasn’t it. He wasn’t killed instantly; instead Hojo took it upon himself to mend Vincent’s wound to stop the bleeding after he lost consciousness. Now Vincent was laid naked on a cold metal table, the blinding white light burning his eyes as he slowly peeled them open. The rest of his body was completely paralyzed, he tried to twitch his fingers or take a breath but all his efforts were in vain. As far as he knew he was all alone, lying there paralyzed in the cold room, being artificially kept alive in preparation for whatever sick experiments the mad scientist with a reasonable grudge had in store. Death would have been much more preferable to whatever faced Vincent now. 

Perhaps this is what he deserved, after all he did nothing to save the other victims of the Shinra Science department. One by one, a “volunteer” would be brought to this mansion by the Turks, usually a young man or woman down on their luck and desperate for cash. The Turks promised these subjects that they would only spend a few days in this mansion to be monitored for a medical study and in exchange they would be paid a reasonable amount of gil. Vincent, having been stationed in this village for nearly a year, watched all of them come into the mansion and never come out. Sometimes he could hear their screams in the odd hours of the night. He felt sympathy for them, but it wasn’t his place to question the purpose of these experiments. He was just a hired grunt here to do a job. It wasn’t personal, it didn’t concern him. Until it was and it did. Until Lucrecia and her baby were the test subjects.

“ _Good morning, Vincent Valentine!_ ” Hojo’s nasally voice rang through the lab. Fear rose through Vincent, crawling up his spine and through his skin in the presence of the sociopathic monster masquerading as a scientist. “Did you sleep well? I certainly did. We have a lot to do today, so I made sure to get well-rested. It was sure nice to sleep beside my darling wife.” 

_So Lucrecia is still here. And still with Hojo, despite everything he put her through._ Vincent’s fear morphed into rage, yet even the overpowering emotion was not enough to break his paralysis. 

“To be honest, I don’t really have a plan in mind. It’s not every day I get to have full control over my experiments. I’ll probably just wing it; maybe rearrange some organs here, inject some mako extractions there, let’s just see what happens. It’ll be fun...well, for me at least. Well, enough idle chatter. Let’s get started.” 

Hojo showed no mercy. It began with the terrifying hum of the electric saw, then slowly lowering down onto Vincent’s left forearm. Vincent felt everything; the cutting and burning of the flesh, muscle, and bone, tearing through every nerve sending an agonizing fire throughout his entire body. He tried to scream, but his vocal cords would not obey. He felt his own warm blood pool at his side and a tingling sensation in his fingers despite no longer being attached to his body. 

“Well what do you know?” said Hojo. “According to the EKG readings, you could feel all of that. It seems the agent I injected into you earlier was at just the right dose to paralyze all your movements but to allow you to experience all of your sensations. Good to know indeed.” 

Vincent shut his eyes out of pain and of horror. He felt almost glad he couldn’t scream, he didn’t want to give this sick bastard the satisfaction of seeing him in agony. It was hopeless. Why didn’t death embrace him earlier? Was this the planet’s will for his divine retribution? Was this the punishment for all his accumulated sins he committed as a Turk? Vincent knew, considering all the people he murdered and the more he caused suffering to either directly or as a bystander, his torture wasn’t even close to being finished. It would take more pain and bloodshed before the planet allowed him to join the lifestream with a clean soul. 

“Lucy is doing well, by the way,” Hojo’s cackling broke through Vincent’s introspection. “We had a long talk while you were asleep. She’s finally come to her senses and returned to me. I’ve forgiven her infidelity. But the pain is still here, deep in my heart. Valentine, do you understand my feeling? Do you understand what it’s like to see the woman I pledged my life to, the one I vowed to stay with through sickness and in health, until death do we part, only to see her longing for another man? And a lesser man, at that! A man who doesn’t even share her scientific curiosity or intellect!” The ominous buzzing of the saw roared once again. “Well, I suppose it would feel like this.”

Flesh tore and burned as the saw pressed into Vincent’s sternum, severing through the skin and muscles, breaking through the fragile bone, the blade reaching dangerously close to his vital organs within his rib cage. A procedure skillfully done as an autopsy on a dead body—not on a living, feeling one. The extreme shock and pain of the saw ripping through his chest caused Vincent’s mind to fade to darkness; a merciful respite from torture.

Vincent faded in and out of consciousness. He had no idea how many hours or days had passed. Sometimes he awoke with his rib cage ripped open in display for Hojo to scalp and scrape at his organs. A record of smooth jazz usually played in the background for Hojo to whistle along to while poking and prodding. At other times he woke up in the pitch-dark lab alone to internally writhe in pain, begging whichever gods may be listening to just get it over with and send him to Hell already. The soul-shattering thought did occur to him that perhaps he was already dead and had been sent to his eternal torment. 

_Eternity,_ the absence of time. As one’s consciousness is assimilated into the lifestream, their concept and awareness of time and space fades with them. An experience that lasts forever yet also very briefly. One second could seem as though it were thousands of years, and he would never even know. Was this the experience of the targets he assassinated? Did he send his unwilling victims to this never ending or beginning hellscape of the lifestream’s force? The skulls in his father’s lab, the bodies in the morgues, those the Turks were ordered to kill to satisfy their clients’ greed and bloodlust. How they all tormented him, their presence sending him into terror and panic. It was all merely a warning for the fate that awaited him in purgatorial assimilation. 

Vincent woke once again to the bright, blinding light of the laboratory, the noise of Hojo’s mutterings grating his ears. 

“Well Valentine,” said Hojo in a tone that sounded as though he were trying to imitate a sigh. “It seems these fun experiments will be coming to an end. A pity really, I was just on the verge of spectacular biological discovery. But tomorrow Lucy is scheduled to deliver our baby and I’ll be very busy for awhile. I have to take care of my son and monitor his progress. This project is the most important advancement in our careers and quite possibly for all of humankind. Ha!” He cackled maniacally. “It’s so brilliant. I wish I had thought of it myself! But in fact, the Jenova Project was all Lucy’s plan. She was the one to propose we inject the Jenova cells into the embryo growing inside her. But I’m glad I could contribute in every way I could. Our son will live such an interesting life.” 

Vincent blinked, as that was the only way he could convey his anger and disgust. Surely Hojo was lying. Vincent understood her! All those secret evenings in his room, as she huddled close to him under his covers and revealed her worries and insecurities, her hopes and her dreams; he cherished every moment. Lucrecia would never have subjected herself and her child to experimentation willingly, right?

 _All those arrogant men at Shinra laughed at my thesis. I have to prove them wrong! I will prove myself! Even if it costs me everything…._ The memory of her words struck his mutilated heart. 

_“_ So Valentine, it’s time to say goodbye for now. But don’t worry. You’re going to be in an induced coma and locked carefully away in this laboratory. You’ll be completely frozen, no decay or growth in any of your cells will occur. Your body will be in pristine condition for the next experiments whenever that may be. Maybe another scientist will get to you first, who knows. Well, sleep tight.”

If only Vincent could vocalize the scream from his soul as everything faded into darkness.

_This wouldn’t be the end._


	3. Into the Unknown

“ _ Vincent, just a little longer…”  _ her sweet voice echoed through his mind, breaking through the low murmur of the intruding demon’s presence, pulling his consciousness forcefully from the abyss that lay between his nightmare and the terrifying reality he faced. Slowly, he became aware of his physical body racked with intense pain throughout his limbs and spine. He desperately took in a breath, but instead of precious air, he inhaled liquidized mako extraction that burned his lungs and filled his mind with the knowledge and emotion of the Planet’s cries. 

Vincent knew he had died, but his spirit was forcibly pulled back into the realm of the living. But he wasn’t alone; this demonic energy had attached itself to him.  _ Fear, horror, loss, grief, desperation _ , the raw emotions from his own soul mixed with the last thoughts of those who were assimilated into the lifestream after their violent deaths. Those poor souls. Their terror, their pleas for mercy, their sins, the helplessness of their cries corrupted the lifestream to create this unholy monstrosity. 

_ I am Chaos. _

Vincent opened his eyes which were immediately washed with green mako. He was trapped in the glass chamber, the test tube for the sadistic scientists in Nibelheim Manor. Through the haze of the mako and the distorted imaging through refraction of the glass, he could see the faint outline of her figure. Her long hair, her white lab coat, the slight tilt of her head as she gazed back to him. Vincent knew for certain it was Lucrecia with him. 

“Vincent, just a little more and then I can let you out.” Lucrecia’s voice barely reached him through the glass and the faint screams of the spirit energy flowing around him. 

_ I will not be contained.  _ The voice in his mind echoed so loudly it seemed to reverberate through his ears. Then, so suddenly, the fire through his nerves burned through every cell in his body. It was as though every vertebrae, every rib, his shoulder blades were being pulled, cracked, and crushed--forming some new monstrous shape. His bones cracked through the muscle and the skin in his back, causing him to involuntarily hunch over as the wings pushed their way out. The screams that escaped from Vincent’s throat were not his, but instead sounded like it belonged to a wild beast trapped in a hunter’s snare. The bones in his hands stabbed through the muscle to form the claws, the horns pushed through the suture of his skull. 

Vincent couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, or even think through the agony and the excruciating screams and roars in his mind. 

_ You will not contain me, human!  _ The demon thrashed violently in its glass prison, its claws nearly scratching through. The test chamber was made from the strongest material produced by Shinra manufacturing, but soon it would be no match for the calamity from the darkest depths of the planet.

“ _ No! Stop! Stop it! Give him back! _ ” Lucrecia’s wails echoed through the lab as she brought her hands to her face as though she had been struck. She was only trying to help. She just wanted to save him...right? That was why she had infused the Chaos materia into Vincent’s body as a desperate act to save the son of her beloved mentor. But as she looked upon the demonic summon that possessed her protector, the consequences of her actions, she could only feel the horror of the unholy demon’s presence. She condemned Vincent to be Chaos’ host, to lose his mind, body, and soul as a host for the fiend born of corrupted lifestream. Would it have been more merciful if she had let him die? Would this be the fate of her and her son now that they were injected with the cells of the fallen calamity?  _ Gods, what have I done? _

One day, as prophesied by the ancient Cetran scriptures, Chaos will rise from the lifestream to purge this world of all life. The sins of humanity poison the lifestream, fueling Chaos’ rage and desire for justice. But it would not be today. The planet still had hope for humanity. 

White light flashed through the lab, leaving only the glowing protomateria at the base of the test chamber. Chaos’ thrashing stopped, serenity waving through its monstrous form. Slowly, the creature inside the mako-filled chamber reverted back to Vincent, his unconscious body looked as though he were sleeping peacefully. 

Tears fell from Lucrecia’s eyes at the realization of what she needed to do. She had woken up one of the planet’s most dangerous weapons against all those who sinned against it. And she condemned a man she respected, the son of her beloved mentor, to be the conduit for this weapon. But the planet had no interest in destroying humanity, not today at least. The planet gave her the tools needed to protect the world from Chaos. 

But would Vincent ever wake up? Or did the transformation and possession destroy his psyche?

“Vincent, I’m so sorry. I hurt you so much, more than any human could possibly deserve. Please still be in there…”

_ Lock him away. Don’t let anyone find him.  _

  
  



	4. Is Anybody There?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW suicide ideation and suicide attempt. Reader discretion advised

The thud of his heavy heartbeat and his ragged breath broke the suffocating silence. He blinked to center vision yet his efforts were futile in the pitch darkness. The excruciating pain from before had faded to a dull ache throughout his body; his sore muscles and skin became tense in the frigid and stale air. As he regained awareness after waking from unconsciousness, Vincent sensed the looming presence of the malevolent forces surrounding and within him. 

How many were in here? Far too many to count, the victims of the Jenova Project were laid to rest in this room. His stomach lurched from the overwhelming stench of decay and the all too familiar force of the lifestream pierced through his soul. The terror of death's presence swept through him just as it did the first time he faced it. Decades ago, in the darkness of his father’s study, gazing upon those sacrificed to an ancient god of the planet. Now, he was lying in the dark crypt of the Nibelheim manor, among those sacrificed to the scientific pursuit of the calamity from the skies. He screamed. 

_ No one will save you now.  _ The voices echoed through the chasms of his mind. Several voices, high and low-pitched, young and old, male and female, his own voice among those of strangers. Out of sync in chaotic harmony. Though they spoke in the ancient Cetran language, Vincent somehow understood the meaning of their provocations.

_ Cry out for your father and mother, _

_ they cannot save you now. _

_ Call for your love, _

_ she will not hear your cries. _

_ She locked you away down here, _

_ where no one will ever find you, _

_ because she is ashamed  _

_ of what she has created. _

The transformation began once again. The fire in his nerves, exploding from every cell in his body, burned through him. Bones shattered and elongated, puncturing through his muscles. Dark fur grew rapidly, completely covering his pale skin. Horns arose from his skull and sharp fangs ripped through his mouth. His form resembled a behemoth, a beast that once roamed the plains of the eastern continent, driven extinct by humans in the last century. His human screams of agony and terror morphed into the roars of the revived behemoth. 

_ A sick mutation of man and beast. _

_ And who could ever love a beast? _

_ This body is but a reflection _

_ of the secrets in your heart: _

_ Fear, hatred, lust, rage, cowardice. _

_ You always wanted to be a monster. _

_ Was that not your deepest desire, _

_ your childish wish  _

_ to scare your demons away? _

_ Now you can see what you truly are, _

_ a stupid, loyal hound  _

_ with no master to tame you. _

_ “Shut up! Get out of my head!”  _ Vincent tried to fight against the demonic presence taunting him, yet his voice was not his own. He couldn’t form the words, they were lost in the beast’s growling. All his cries were lost with no living souls to hear. 

An unnerving amount of time was spent in absolute darkness, transforming and returning in and out of his human and monstrous forms. The chaotic voices tormented his mind incessantly. There was no hope of escaping this dungeon, and even if there was, what fate would await him out there? To be captured by his fellow Turks and sent to the underground labs being built in Midgar? To spend the rest of his existence as a lab rat dissected and prodded by other Shinra scientists as sick as Hojo?

_ There is only one path for you. _

_ Embrace the darkness in your soul, _

_ accept the pain of the sins in your heart _

_ become one with the Chaos inside you. _

“ _ No! _ ” Vincent wailed, barely hearing his own voice over the demon’s maniacal laughter. He kneeled and felt around on the cold floor and felt the familiar cool metal of his gun. Why was it here? Did Hojo and Lucrecia leave it here when they locked him in this crypt? It was his most precious weapon, the three-barreled Cerberus. The Hound of Hades, protector of the Underworld. Now this Cerberus will send him there. He knew exactly where to place the barrels against his skull for a painless death, as long as he could keep his hands from shaking. 

_ Do you truly believe _

_ you can end your divine punishment _

_ on your own terms? _

_ You still have much to atone for. _

Vincent allowed the tears to burst through his sore eyes as he recalled his loved ones and his regrets, of what he had done and what he had left undone. He cried out loud as if they could all hear his final prayer for mercy. “Father...Mother, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I failed you and I couldn’t be the son you deserved. Veld, I’m sorry for being such a lousy partner, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed a friend. Lucrecia…” He choked back the pain rising from his chest to his throat as he thought of  _ her. _ The most wonderful and kind-hearted woman he had ever met. The first one who seemed to truly understand him. Vincent truly loved her, more than he thought it to be possible for a heartless assassin like him. She made him believe, even just briefly, that he might have had a heart to love with. He couldn’t say his apologies out loud. He had made her suffer so much from his own inaction. He couldn’t stop them from hurting her and her child. It was all his fault; Lucrecia couldn’t possibly be to blame.

_ She locked you away down here, _

_ where no one will ever find you, _

_ because she is ashamed  _

_ of what she has created.  _

_ You know this to be true. _

_ There is only one path for you, _

_ it has been decided, _

_ and your efforts to defy it _

_ will all be in vain. _

Vincent set the gun against his temple and fired. The end never came. He didn’t know how much time had passed when he awoke in a dried pool of his own blood, the wound on his head completely healed. He felt nothing; not pain, not fear, not hope. His spirit was but an empty void where no light or emotion could reach him. 

_ You are still alive. _

_ You should be thankful for this blessing. _

_ Men have desired immortality _

_ since the beginning of time, _

_ and you have received it! _

_ Death will not take you. _

_ Age will not claim you. _

_ You will outlive every human, _

_ until you are the last one alive _

_ to wander this planet among the beasts. _

_ Only when Chaos rises  _

_ from the darkest depths of the earth _

_ will you join the lifestream. _

No aging, no dying. It was too much to handle. If only he could sleep forever… He felt the wood of the coffin in the center of the room. It was empty, as if it was saved just for him. He lay down and closed the coffin, locking himself away from the force of death in the dungeon. Vincent closed his eyes and felt himself drift away, the voices in his head soothing him to sleep.

_ Sleep. _

_ Atone in your slumber. _

_ Perhaps someday someone will find you _

_ and wake you _

_ and you can find redemption _

_ and your sins will be forgiven _

_ if that is what you truly desire. _

_ So sleep now. _

_ Chaos is always with you. _

_ I am always with you. _


End file.
